Kill the Vegetarian (A Sort of Part Two)

This week's a bit of a continuation of last week's entry and about something I've been thinking about for some time, but have been a bit hesitant to bring up more than a handful of times, normally after some beer and guaro. But today, I'm coming clean.

There's no easy way to say this, Internet, so I'm just going to blurt it out: I'm questioning my vegetarianism. For those of you who don't know, I've been vegetarian for over twelve years. The original impulse was something natural, of feeling that something wasn't right, and over time, I explored that impulse to see what was under it and now have a whole range of reasons ranging from animal rights to world famine to personal health and environmental conversation. Even still, I've never advocated vegetarianism as a one size fits all lifestyle, especially for people with other dietary restrictions or for whom it would otherwise be legitimately unhealthy.

I was vegetarian through my whole time in Spain, despite the instance of many a Spaniard that it wasn't healthy or that "ham isn't meat." (Yeah, okay...) And here in Colombia, I've continued to not eat meat, but some things are throwing a bit of doubt into the mix... For example, last Friday, my department at the university had a big lunch with everyone as an end of the semester celebration, and while some professors were nice enough to talk to the waiter and try to get things sorted out, there was a course or two that I simply had to just skip. While I wasn't very bothered by this—it is my choice not to eat what they want to give me at a meal I'm not paying for—the stares I got were a bit unnerving. They all seemed to say, "Why isn't he eating? What's wrong with him?" I worry that it even comes off a bit snobbish or quasi-anorexic, which is bad when you're trying desperately to integrate into a culture. On one hand, it's like "Man up, Adam! You have principles, and you're standing by them! Who cares what they think?" But it's not just what they think that I care about so much. It's how much I'm missing out on. Food is such a big part of nation's culture, and I'm unable to partake in about eighty percent of it. The question is whether this is worth the life of another animal. Or, perhaps more to the point, what is worth the life of another animal?

Not to mention whether I could actually put that in my mouth.

I'm also a bit nervous about my health. Up till now, my health has not only been sufficient but thriving. There was some time in Spain where that wasn't true, but my dietary knowledge wasn't as good and there's always a general learning curve to locating good vegetarian food in any new place. Yet here in Colombia, it's different. While there are more vegetarians than in Spain, there is not more vegetarian food, especially vegetarian food at an affordable price. I've lost about sixteen pounds since I've moved here. Most of it seems to have been fat, so it's fine for now, but what am I going to do when I want to stop losing weight (which is soon)? It's a struggle to get in the recommended amount of protein for someone who lifts weights without too much fat or carbohydrates along the way. This leaves very few options for food throughout the day, and a diet without variety isn't normally a very good idea. (I should mention that it's higher than what's needed for the average, sedentary person. Most of you eat way more protein than you need.) I've also been sleeping a lot lately, which was the first sign back in Spain that something was not right about my diet, but this could have something to do with the 4:30 am wake up time for those 6 am French classes. Thank goodness I had my last one on Friday.

But the problem of my health is a legitimate one, and at what point has it affected me enough that I should switch? Is it when I can't support more muscle growth and therefore my health, while no longer equal to a meat eater's, is still sufficient to be "okay"? Is it when I sleep too much and lack energy? Is it when a basic metabolic panel comes back lacking in vitamin B or iron? Where is the line? I'm going to make an appointment with a doctor in January to start investigating once I'm back from Christmas break traveling. Meanwhile, if anyone wants to tell me how to run my life and what to eat, now's your free pass to speak your mind. I know some of you are absolutely dying to.

But for this limited time offer..... YOU CAN BE!

The Most Magical Place in Colombia

Colombia is the country with the second most holidays in the world (after Argentina), which means at least once a month, sometimes twice, you get a day off. Additionally, these days almost always fall on Fridays or Mondays, so it's always a long weekend. When they don't, they, depending on where you work, often form a puente, which means bridge, as in we're just going to be build a little bridge of days off into the weekend because we have our priorities straight. This happened when I went to school in Spain as well, and I really think the US should get on this train as soon as possible. But with such consumerist phenomena as Black Friday, I'm not sure that's going to happen anytime soon.

Just cross this magical bridge to the weekend!

As you may have picked up from my past complaints, I'm a bit jaded toward Colombia. For all my complaining, I don't hate it. It has some really nice qualities, but I don't really buy into the magic that I think some of my cohorts do. There's frustrations, culture shock, annoyances, mistreatment, and other unpleasant things, and I keep it all in perspective. Complaining about it is a means for me to get it off my chest, to get past the stage of anger and move on to a place where I can start making peace with the reality of the situation. I don't feel any need to sell you on what a wonderful adventure this all is and how great every moment is supposed to be (according to... someone...); I'd much rather include you in on what's happening, of how difficult it can be adapt sometimes and how effortlessly it happens others. In short, I need to be real with you in order to be truthful to myself. After all, worthwhile adventures are often quite difficult, prone to moments of despair, and not always smiles and cholados. Meanwhile, mmmm cholados. More good Colombian food.

In any case, when I took advantage of this past long weekend to visit a city I had heard a lot about as being a magical, relaxing place called Villa de Leyva, I naturally was probably not the most receptive critic, but with Villa de Leyva, I absolutely fell in love! It's the first place I've been to in Colombia that I was just absolutely enthralled by. Villa de Leyva is not, on paper, a very impressive city. It's small, centered most around a main square, and there's little to see or do once you get a few blocks away from said square. But the scenery, the misty mountains, the colonial architecture, the bungalow style hostel I stayed in, the relaxed atmosphere and the extreme friendly, small-town people, were overwhelmingly delightful.

While I was there, I didn't do much. I met two girls in the hostel who were very friendly, Kati from Germany and Lauren from Texas, and a guy from Bogota and his friend who were in town for a film festival. I ended up seeing one film in the festival, Tierra en la lengua, which was good but very, um, independent. The grandfather protagonist, Don Silvio, however, is very interesting, alternating between comical and disgusting, and the changes in his character as his body betrays him are interesting to watch develop. The ending is sudden but fitting.

I also visited some small museums. My two favorite were one that was based around Antoni Nariño, known for translating The Declaration of the Rights of Man among other political and military feats, and the other was an art museum, where I played one of my favorite games in which I use pictures to free write short stories. Here's the one I liked the most of the two or three I wrote, which at the end, without my intending to, seemed to reflect the changes in the way children view their parents as they grow up.

Click to see a large view.

Beyond the festival and museums, I mostly sat in bars, enjoying the atmosphere, reading more of Cien años de soledad. But it was there that I met friendly, interesting people. One was a table of two older ladies who offered to buy me a coffee after I finished a meal, but I declined, and the other was two Colombian women who had come in from Bogota and wanted to know what I was reading with such interest. We talked for a while, and then I finished my canelazo (something like a Colombian hot toddy), and I went on my way. I hiked in the mountains, pausing in a moment of complete hipsterdom to practice my katakana among the trees. In short, I did nothing of any real consequence, and that's exactly what I wanted.

Throughout my time there, I kept thinking it would be the perfect place for a honeymoon or at least the start of one, and I dreamed of having the money to start a business, probably a small store that required little attention, while I stayed in that town, retreating from the world, translating some good literature and occasionally writing a little something of my own. It wouldn't be a bad life at all.

Culture Wars

"What's your favorite thing about Colombian culture?"

Someone asked me this recently, and I was like a deer caught in headlights. My brain worked overtime to try to come up with something, anything, just a little bit of some positive experience that I could grab a hold of and use.

Fortunately, someone mercifully changed the subject, and I was off the hot seat, but the experience stayed with me, and I kept thinking about it

I started to wonder: Do I in fact like nothing about Colombian culture? Though as soon as I posed myself this question, I felt its lack of truth. If I hated being in Colombia so much, why is it that I have no desire to leave?

Then I tried another line of questioning: What is Colombian culture? I had no idea how to answer that. How does one even begin to define a culture from nothing more than their own subjective experience? Considering the uniqueness of each successive experience in a day, how do I begin to organize them into data sets about which generalizations can be made? And is total objectivity even possible? Are we only able to say something is cultural by comparing it to our own?

For example, if I am in the mall, and people seem to be completely and utterly spatially oblivious, do I chalk that up to:a) Colombian culture?
b) a pan-cultural thing wherein everyone automatically forgets how to walk in malls?
c) a characteristic of Colombian culture that also, by chance, is similar to American culture?
d) or is the vividness of my frustration in these instances causing me to remember those more than all the times that someone actually acted like I existed and let me pass by without saying con permiso three times?

I started to really think about this the more I heard people try to discuss Colombian culture. It seemed that often someone would recount a particular instance and then end it with "Yeah, Colombians are really _____." Because I sometimes wish I were a mentat and can't help to automatically think about sets of premises and a conclusion in terms of what little training I have in logic, I realized that:

1) Ca (Ana is a Colombian.)
2) La (Ana arrives late.)
3) Ca>La (If Ana is Colombian, then Ana arrives late.)
∴ ∀x(Cx>Lx) (Therefore all Colombians arrive late.)

is a total fallacy. A "hasty generalization" to be precise, which is a fitting name.

I think part of the problem is that statements about culture tend to be too narrow. "X culture likes this," "X culture doesn't really eat that," and so on. The problem with these sorts of statements is that they don't leave a lot of room for an individual's manifestation of a particular cultural characteristic. It takes a lot more work, time, and compassion, but I think there's a way to rephrase these thoughts in a way that are not only free of judgement but allow them to maintain their truth as each individual in that culture expresses them in a certain way.

The problem with this is that it takes significant time to gather a lot of data and effort to think through it without falling prey to some sort of mental bias. And patience and work are things that humans are often adverse to. We'd much prefer to leave it as something simple and move on to the next thing. But I've come to penetrate Colombian culture, among other things, and this is my strategy.

Yeah, sorry...

It's something I'd recommend even within the United States, with all our different cultures trying to coexist peacefully and, truthfully, not doing to great of a job at it. This is how the capacity for empathy is built, little by little, and this is how I'll be able to one day not be so frustrated by all sorts of little things here. In fact, even just yesterday, I caught myself thinking, as I walked down Calle 5 from the mall to my home, "Maybe this isn't so bad. Maybe I am getting used to this after all."

So what is my favorite thing about Colombian culture? Maybe it's ability, more so than other cultures I've experienced, to challenge me to think about myself, to realize that perhaps I wasn't as open-minded and free-thinking as I used to believe I was, and it's gift of an opportunity to push those bounds a little farther.

Oh, and the food. I mean, an aborrajado with a jugo de mora en leche.... ♥...

Spreading the gospel of Keyboard Cat

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might have noticed a bit of dissatisfaction with my time here, and if you did notice it, you'd be correct. Things are moving very slowly here, which is just a bit how Colombia rolls, but there were also several interruptions: the department head was abroad for the first week, my advisor got in a car crash the second week, holidays meant the school was closed for a few days, then my step father died in the third week and I had to take a week off to go back to the US. Now there's another interruption: an enrichment week in Bogotá with all the other Fulbright ETAs. This means the main core of my responsibilities here won't have started until a few days shy of two months after I started my job. And considering I like my job, that sucks. That sucks in a very big way.

This is nothing against Fulbright. Most other ETAs are well situated in their programs by now and hopefully are having the blast I expect to be having. But it just so happened to strike at an inopportune time for me. On the other hand, it's an all-expense paid trip for a week in a nice hotel with fun people, so I guess I can't complain too much.

Lately, though, things are getting more interesting around here. This is partly because I've kicked my advisor out of the driver's seat, and now I basically go around organizing my own stuff and then tell him later. For example, this week I stopped by two different organizational meetings for the English teachers here to introduce myself, and by the time I left, I had scored myself a whopping eleven class visits!

Yesterday, I had five in one day. I spent the day running around and left the university at seven o'clock, which makes for a long day when you're up at four in the morning. By the time I got home, I was so tired I couldn't do anything but buy an arepa with cheese, stuff it down my gullet, and fall down face first on the bed and pass out. It was my most rewarding day here yet.

Even better is that I think I made a good impression on most of the teachers and students, which bodes well for getting students to come to the conversation clubs, which was my primary reason for making so many visits this week. I did my best to take another professor's advice and try to teach them about the interaction between culture and language, the kind of things that they won't find in a text book. Since they were in a technology unit, I decided to teach them about texting and internet acronyms because it was one of the more confusing things for me when I first started making friends in Spain. Like how was I supposed to know "x" meant "por"? I mean, I see why now. "Por" is used in the same sense as "times" as in "two times three is six," hence the use of a multiplication sign to stand in for it. But when you first see it for the first time, you just kind of wonder if it's a typo. 

I spent the second part of my time talking about United States internet culture, particularly different words and a few things that hadn't seem to become international phenomenons, such as the words "derpy" and "troll," explaining the internet obsession with cats (such as cat bread, grumpy cat and keyboard cat), and using the "ermahgerd" meme to explain not only explain how speech is often written phonetically on the internet ("2morrow" or "gr8") but what Goosebumps books are and how memes work in general, which ended up leading to this gem.

I was happy that I noticed that I was even teaching the teachers a few things. I noticed some would write things down so that they might incorporate some of this stuff into their future classes. It's great to think that I not only educated some students under the guise of showing them YouTube videos about cats and how to text like a pro but also helped some teachers develop their curricula further. Of course, there were some teachers who were less receptive than others to my presence, and with the ones who I sensed didn't really want me there, I did my best to just talk about conversation clubs, do a little bit of an activity, and then get the hell out of dodge. It is, after all, my way to not stay where I'm not wanted (re: New York). But if this was any indication of how conversation clubs are going to be when they start, I think we're going to have a great time. Things are about to get a whole lot more interesting around here.

Colombian Frogger

Here in Colombia my morning goes as follows: I wake up before the sun at 4 o'clock in the morning. I take about an hour to take a flash shower in cold water (because there's no other option), fix my breakfast and pack my lunch. I then stare at the ground for a good fifteen minutes to mentally prepare myself for the day. When ready, I go to French class, which technically starts at six but in actuality starts at 6:10, and then after class, I walk to work.

When I saw I walk to work, you might think I stroll down streets lined with sidewalks. Perhaps a few stores. Maybe a few early morning joggers and people with dogs. You might think I walk through a field as a shortcut. Something like that.

No. In actually it's more something like this.

A game of human Frogger

You see, pedestrians do not have the right of way in Colombia. Ever. Even when there's a stop sign or a red light. Sometimes, if the road's aren't busy, it's not uncommon for someone to decide that they're no longer into waiting for the light to turn green and they just go for it. Because.... ganas. Addionatelly, stop signs are treated more as yield signs, though I'm not really sure what they yield to. Definitely not me. They kind of slow down and roll through it and then speed back up. Meanwhile, despite running stop signs and red lights, Colombians are always late. Always. Bring a book, or you'll regret it.

You see, parts of the road to work lack sidewalks, and when I get to those parts I have to use the bike lanes. Curiously, I don't encounter a lot of bikes in the bike lane, but I do often end up face to face with cars who are trying to use it to cheat past traffic jams. It's pretty alarming to see a car barreling toward you with nowhere right or left to go. It's also pretty frustrating where you're in a lane that's not meant for cars. (PRO TIP: That's what that bike painted on the ground means.) Normally these attempts to cut everyone in the traffic jam line are pretty fruitless. As far as I can tell, what time they gain in passing the cars, they seem to lose when they have to find a way to merge back into the actual traffic, often unexpectedly because there's a pedestrian or a bike or they need to make a turn. I'm not sure what these drivers think.... Like it's this magic lane reserved only for them so they can get to work late before everyone else. I don't know. Maybe next time one has stopped dead in front of me with no where to go because I have no where to go and the traffic was already jammed up to begin with, I'll ask. Or punch the car, which is what I normally fantasize about doing.

This is the stuff dreams are made of.

This isn't something unique to the road to work. This is everywhere. I was walking through a parking lot, and even in the United States, parking lots can be a place where suddenly all bets are off and people drive wherever they want, don't signal, just do whatever. In Colombia, since the road is often like that to begin with, traversing a large parking lot can be upsetting. Once I pulled the stop sign hand out on someone. I had to. Otherwise, I would've just stood there forever waiting for someone to let me walk. (PRO TIP #2: They will never just let you walk.)

Please?

This all reminds me of when I first came to New York and people would stand in the street waiting for the light to change. I thought they were crazy. I remember I wouldn't get close to the sidewalk because I was afraid a car would hit me. Flash forward about a year and I was standing in the street waiting for the light to change like all the rest. Maybe eventually I'll learn to stop caring and just walk right out into that street like I have the right. And maybe I'll stop viewing Colombian drivers as lunatics with latent homicidal tendencies. I sure hope so at least. It'll make the walk a lot more pleasant.

Das poop

So remember when I said cultural adaptation tends to come from the little things that you don't expect rather than big ones that you can foresee? It's the little changes to your daily life that attack your sense of normality and make you really feel out of place. Things you take for granted. Like grilled cheese, ziplock bags, or pooping.

Yeah. You heard me. Pooping.

Allow me to explain.

For the first few days, I lived in blissful ignorance of how to properly poop here in Colombia, and I continued to do what I've always done: Feel nature's beeper buzz, go to the bathroom, [details deleted for a somewhat family friendly audience], grab a wad of toilet paper, clean myself, throw the toilet paper in the toilet (hence it's name), and then flush. This is not how you do it here in Colombia.

During orientation, I was informed that I've been doing it all wrong. And not just wrong like "they're all going to laugh at you," but I could have possibly clogged up some pipes, which is never a pleasant affair. The water pipes here in Colombia are not as wide as back home, and that gives the toilet paper a hard time when it goes through them. As it turns out, this little trashcan that I had never noticed before by all the toilets in every bathroom, public or private, is for that very purpose.

You put the toilet paper in the trash can.
(But I don't recommend drinking them both up.)

When I found this out, I was embarrassed. First because of the cultural and practical faux-pas, but then later when it came to actually doing it, to put my dirty toilet paper in the trash for all to see. I mean, it's like private. It's so private that it normally stays in my body where no one can see until it's ready and then I go in a small room by myself where no one can see it, and then dispose of it as fast as possible. I mean, not even I see too much of it. I also didn't want to broadcast to the world exactly how efficient or inefficient my digestive system was working. Let's suffice it to say that some days it ain't cute.

Will today be the day
it happens to me?

Perhaps related to this, many bathrooms don't have toilet paper in them. Or so I've been told. I haven't experienced this personally, but every time I'm in a new bathroom and don't think of this possibility till mid-act, fear pierces my heart, time stops, and I stick my hand into the dispenser wondering if this'll be the day that my number is up. Fortunately, so far, I've been okay. What I have experienced a lot of bathrooms not having are toilet seats. Yeah, toilet seats. In the US, when a toilet didn't have a seat, it normally was a bar, and I think the idea was that it was only supposed to be used for doing number one, and doing number two was discouraged, but here, I don't think that can be the case because... 1) There's toilet paper and 2) It's literally like every public restroom everywhere. I mean, is it a germ situation? Is it cheaper? Did one guy do it in an attempt to be avant garde and edgy, and everyone followed because toilet seats "weren't cool anymore"? I don't know. I also don't know what the typical Colombian does in lieu of not having a toilet seat. Squat? Perch? I'll spare telling you my personal solution. Maybe I'll start a survey and get back to you.

However, because to be human is to be adaptable, I'm already pretty used to all of this. So much so that when I had to visit the United States for my step-father's funeral, I kept hesitating over the garbage with my tissue before realizing I could put it in toilet and flush it. In fact, I overcame all embarrassment from the toilet paper-in-the-trash thing pretty quickly. Now it's just routine, which I suppose is ideal. I fold it over and then no one's embarrassed, no one has see it, and no one has to deal with a clogged toilet. Y vivimos felices y comimos perdices.

Vegetarian Food Hoarder

Hello, my name is Adam Wier, and I am a food hoarder.

Yes, you heard me right. Food hoarder. I hoard food and only food.

Here's the deal, mes amis. If you don't already know, I'm a vegetarian, and much like when I went to Spain, one of my biggest problems adapting here in Colombia is finding things to eat. Often times, locals aren't too much help. In both countries, vegetarianism hasn't really taken off like it has in other places in the West. So when I ask where I can get vegetarian food, I'm normally told that "such and such place has great salads!"

Seriously?!

How would you feel if I told you, "Oh, don't worry, we don't have any meat, but you can just have a salad!" I would be just as woebegone as you.

I can't speak for other vegetarians, but I know that I don't really eat primarily vegetables and fruits. I mean, I'm not angry at vegetables or fruits. If they happen to be in whatever I'm eating, that's great, they're allowed, they can stay here, but I mostly go for other stuff. Like dairy. Not that protein is really a problem for your average vegetarian (iron and B-12 might be a different story), but dairy products tend to be a good source of it. But that aside... you've like heard of cheese, right?!

Of course, I go for somethings that aren't really meat substitutes per se but are the staples of a thriving vegetarian diet. Tofu, seitan, tempeh, and other things that if you ask a person in a grocery store in Cali about, they'll look at you like you just asked them where the glardivarks are. (And I don't know what a glardivark is, so don't even ask. It's probably not a vegetable though.)

In any case, this week I made a breakthrough in finding food, which brought the situation from red alert to a cool green. As a warm up I found a vegetarian sandwich with seitan at my university's food court. And with a lot of help from my roommate Luisa, I found about a gazillion different flavors of tofu at Carulla. And then thanks to my adviser at the university, Roger, I found some seitan that's even cheaper than what's sold in the United States!

Thanks to fellow Fulbrighter in Bucaramanga,
Eddie, for the meme. Check out his blog at
http://ciudadanoglobalcitizen.blogspot.com/

So when I found this bounty, I did what any other animal facing the threat of starvation would do.... I stockpiled. And I did indeed pile a stock! When I looked at my bank account, I clutched my pearls for dear life. A decent chunk missing. Vegetarian food here is often a bit on the expensive side, and I eat a lot. Put the two together and you got trouble. There's no reason to worry. I still have plenty of money till pay day, but man, I felt it. I also have a full fridge. And that feels pretty good too, especially after SALADFEST 2014, also known as Fulbright orientation week (see left).

That brings us to this morning. As I was cooking some eggs for breakfast, I started trying to figure out the next time I could go to another store someone had recommended. Maybe after work today? Maybe tomorrow? I opened the door to get some milk to pour myself for and looked at all the food I had in there. Several bags of milk (not a vegetable), about thirty eggs (not vegetables), a few stacks of tofu (also not vegetables), arepitas con queso (still not vegetables), some olives (okay... vegetables), and a freezer with two large packages of seitan as well as a few other odds and ends (all, I assure you... not vegetables). Enough food for a few weeks at least. I had no business buying more. And that's when I realized it: I'm a food hoarder.

And with that came the sudden realization of why. And of how freaked out I am. About everything. Because that's how it is when you're a stranger in a strange land. And stuff like that hits you especially hard when it encroaches on something so vital and familiar to you as your eating habits. Amassing food was a means to feel in control again, to feel like I've got something under wraps, to think that everything's going to be okay, and that life will begin to find a bit of regularity and familiarity again. And it is, but the thing is buying all the tofu and seitan and whatever in the country isn't going to make that happen faster. It'll come with time, and that's all there is to it. We should never underestimate the wonderful ability of humans to adapt to their surroundings, no matter how much the environment might change, but we have to have the confidence to give that ability the space and time to work. So, tonight, there are no more shopping trips, no more searching, nothing. Just eating some good food in my new home...

...and some anime.

Adapting to a new country is a bitch

Every time you go to a new country, there's always a pesky period of adaptation you have to go through, and Colombia is no different. This period of adaptation is generally characterized by everything going wrong. I mean, EVERYTHING. A secondary characteristic, which may just be a symptom of the first, is that you feel completely out of place and you notice (whether it's actually there or not) a strange look in everyone's eye. You feel like an alien. And not the cute, gray kind, but the kind that like has five eyes, three mouths, some other identified appendage, and no manners whatsoever. The kind of alien where you don't even know where to look at when you're conversing. Some full blown H.P. Lovecraft, Azathoth shit.

It's great for self-esteem, let me tell you.

In order to show you how a day can go from normal to disaster without even trying, allow me to recount to you my last Wednesday, in which I tried to obtain my Colombian ID. It's called a cédula de extranjería, and when you have a long term visa, you're required to apply for one by your fifteenth day in the country or face the consequences which can be anywhere from a fine to deportation. This little nugget becomes important later.

I had intended to wake up at six a.m. just to be safe, but as we all make horrible decisions when we haven't gotten enough sleep, I decided to sleep in until nine. I got up, got dressed, had a short breakfast to try to make up some time, and I was out the door and onto Colombia's main public transportation system, the MIO.

I had never gone to the Migración office before, and I was in a bit of a rush, so I jumped on a bus I was pretty sure would take me there. To make sure, I decided to ask the girl sitting next to me what bus we were on: "¿Cuál es el número de este autobús?" Her response: "No hablo inglés."

Rude.

"No te hablo en inglés. Te estoy hablando en español. ¿Cuál es el número de este autobús?"

"E21."

"....Gracias."

You know, shit like that really pisses me off. Same as when you ask someone to repeat themselves once, and they either start speaking to you in English or they pass you off to their English-speaking co-worker. Like, really? We're in a bar. There's music blaring, and my asking you to repeat yourself has nothing to do with how you might need to speak up but everything to do with that I can't speak a language I've studied for well over a decade. Okay then...

Anyway, it was clear early on it was going to be that kind of day.

I got off two stops early to stop at the bank. I enter what I think is the right bank to pay for my cédula, and I'm told I actually need to go to the sister branch, two blocks down. So I do. As I walk up to the door, in some twist of tragicomedic kismet, I watch them shut the door and turn the lock as they look me right in the eye.

I basically freaked out, which looked something like this.

Click here to see
why Ingress is pretty awesome.

It turns out banks close here from 11:30 to 2:00. Yeah, you read that right. Two and a half hours. It was then that I started to worry about not getting to Migración in time. And that day was the deadline for my cédula. But I tried to keep cool. I played Ingress.

In the course of my wanderings, I discovered a supplement store, and as it was about one thirty at this point, I decided to go in, buy some better tasting whey than they were selling at my local supermarket, and then be on my way to the bank. Not so simple. It turns out they keep all the products in some other location and only keep display cases out. So when I finally decided on some overpriced whey, the guy left to go get it from this mystery storage center. I'm not sure what time he came back because at 2:45, I said I absolutely had to go, and I did.

When I got to the bank, I passed through the line twice because I didn't realize I needed to fill out a form. When I paid, I dashed down the street toward Migración. But when I got there, it was nowhere to be found. After asking about three different people, I found it hidden behind a series of other buildings. I also found it closed. The next day was a holiday. My deadline would be passed. I sat down and cried on the sidewalk. It had been a horrible day.

Epilogue
When I finally went back on Friday, they said I'd have to pay a fine. We went through the process of fingerprinting, registering everything, and they told me the website I can check to see when it's ready. They never asked for the money.

Wherein Adam says his good-bye

My time in New York is coming to a close. Ten years ago, if you had told me this day was coming, I wouldn't have believed you. I wouldn't have imagined a day that I would willingly leave, and now I'm ready to go and have been for the last year or two. And despite the love affair turned bitter-marriage-kept-together-for-the-kids, I'm having a hard time leaving New York now that the time to go is right before me. 

I didn't have a Toto
to bring with me though.

When I came here, this place was my haven and refuge. At seventeen years old and out of high school for a little under a month, I came here to begin my adult life. To begin forgetting and healing from the childhood I still prefer to forget rather than remember. This place helped me learn that all the things that made me feel so disjointed with where I grew up were something that other people would find fascinating and worth encouraging. It let me forget parts of who I was, so I could start to become who I wanted to be. It protected me. It pushed me by always threatening to break me but never really made good on those threats. It made me tough. And by making me tough, it taught me how to be compassionate. It showed me all sorts of wonderful people and things. It made me feel alive. It helped me to stop being afraid. Of everything. I learned how to think on my feet and turn my mistakes into their own solutions. It endowed me with a sense of self that will be my beacon and guide for the rest of my life, despite my self being far from a static entity.

And as I go and remember all the things I loved about New York while seeing all the reasons it's no longer working out, I can't help but feel jealousy when I see other people here in New York, continuing on with their lives, some of them living the life I wish I had found. Or once had but grew tired of. I'm still not sure which. I became disillusioned at some point, and I'm not sure if I'm going to bounce back from that lack of faith without time away. Wishing and jealousy won't change that. Jealousy, by the way, is a new thing for me. That doesn't happen often, which makes it harder to deal with, and of course, makes me feel crazy. But as we established last week, I'm not really feeling myself these days. Whatever that means.

^^New personal mantra^^

Unlike the last time I went abroad, going to Colombia isn't just a break in my life to do something new and then return home. When I come back to the United States, there's not much to come back to. There are my family and friends, and I don't mean to downplay their importance to me, but I feel a bit homeless again. Indiana is only my hometown in name, and New York has always felt like home but now it's a home that no longer fits with me. I guess maybe that's why nomadism has started to appeal to me: to find a new home, wherever in the entire world that may be.

Something that I'm learning is that no matter what kind of time you have and no matter how you planned it, there are always loose ends when you leave a place. There's people you wish you had gotten to know better, there's places you wish you had visited, and things you wish you had done. Good-byes you wish you had said or somehow sadistically wanted to feel grander, bigger, more emotional, and not as if you were going to see each other the next day because it's hard to imagine you're not going to. One last run in Central Park, one last visit to the Bourgeois Pig, one more trip to Jones Beach, one more day to... But time ticks by, things end, they change, and they have been changing. Kate's Joint closes, you resign from running a theatre company you built out of nothing with one of your best friends, the monthly metro card raises another twenty dollars. And you have to say good-bye and you have to let go because you risk ruining everything you once had.

So... Good bye, New York. It's been real. It's been beautiful. I hope we can meet again someday when we're both ready.

Yes, I'm nervous, but that's okay.

When I tell them I'm going away, people, of course, ask all sorts of questions, but one always comes up no matter how well or little the person knows me: Are you nervous? My stock response is, "I'm more excited than anything," and it seems people write it off as me being naive because, despite these dark circles under my eyes and my pitch black sense of humor, I somehow still manage to come off as a sweet, innocent, optimistic sort of person. Go figure. But let me share a little secret with you, dear readers:

Yes, I'm nervous. I'm nervous as hell.

I think normally people ask this in the context of Colombia's reputation for not being the safest country to travel to, and in that respect, I am not nervous. I have full confidence that the Fulbright people in Colombia as well as the ones here in the States have our safety at the forefront of their minds and will not let anything happen to us. We have to follow some basic rules such as informing them of any travel and, for the most part, avoiding any sort of ground travel in favor of going by air, but I'm really glad to have what I see as a resource for traveling within the country. Who knows, maybe they can also give me tips on how to find cheap airfare while they're at it?

What am I nervous about? For starters, trying to make friends, which can be tough when you don't know a single person. Then there's not having danced salsa since high school and only looking good doing so because of Luisanna Rodriguez telling me what to do all the time, which wouldn't normally matters two bits except for Santiago de Cali is the self-styled "salsa capital of the world." To a lesser degree, trying to find an apartment, though I truthfully can't imagine it being any worse than New York where you have to give a deposit; first, last, and sometimes second or more month's rent; pass a credit check; have a guarantor and then sign away your first born male child to secure an apartment. But above everything else, I'm nervous about adjusting to the little daily things that can really add up.

If Ryan Gosling and Ellen came out with their
own "¡you can learn salsa, gringo!" video series,
I would soooooo buy it.

If you were around when I was still making videos from Spain, you might recall a certain little moment of frustration and hopelessness in a giant park that I couldn't find my way out of and eventually missed two classes that day as a result. It was no good. Then there was the frustration with what I perceived as needlessly complicated procedures for securing a monthly Metro pass or the maze like streets of the city that I never fully understood, or the need to journey to the one Corte Inglés that carried seitan in all of Madrid to have some sort of significant vegetarian protein intake. Those little daily life frustrations can add up, especially when you make one fatal mistake: you try to live the lifestyle you had in one location when you're in another one. It was only in my last months there that I decided to let go of the lifestyle I had become accustomed to in New York in favor for something that was a bit more madrileño, and I regret how late in the process I allowed myself to grow into my new home.

One thing that has recently caused me to be more nervous is the end of my relationship with my boyfriend, who had originally planned to go with me. It became obvious after a while that it would put more stress on us that wouldn't be good for him or me. I won't mince words and say that knowing he would be with me was a great comfort, and now that things have changed, I'm a bit more nervous than I was before. But the fact of the matter is that my desire to go and do this, to see the world, to gain experience in an upper level academic environment, to improve my Spanish, and learn about Colombian culture all conspire together to overpower that fear. It's there, asking to be heard, but in a chorus of so many voices, it can't focus on it for long. None the less, it's hard not to feel like I'll be leaving a bit of myself back here. When I think about him, that he's no

Le Petit Prince et Le Renard

longer part of my life, that we won't be able to share these experiences together, I feel something strange, like an amputee feeling limbs they no longer have. He was my partner in crime, and now, having to pull a solo heist in a foreign land, I feel a bit daunted. He was and always will be one of my favorite people in the world, and I hope we'll stay in contact even after I go, and I'll bring him news of what's happening in the southern hemisphere. It reminds me of the TV series adaptation of the Little Prince and his rose, writing letters back to his home planet to share all the things he saw and did. As the fox said to Le Petit Prince, "Tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé." ("You will always be responsible for that which you have tamed.") And in that way, we'll always be connected to each other, as two hearts that, in some way, tamed each other.

(Videos = hard)(Restarting blog = good)

So, welcome back for some of you, and welcome for the first time to others. As you may or may not remember, this blog used to be a chronicle of my six months studying abroad in Spain. It consisted mostly of videos I would make talking about my experiences and recording some things I would see around Madrid. I abandoned the blog before leaving Madrid because, well, as it turns out videos are really, really hard. Not just for me to conceptualize and execute but apparently also on my computer, which started emitting a sound that could be called nothing other than a death rattle and was destined to survive only about four more months.

Photo of me at work editing a video

Videos are also time consuming. It started to become obvious to me that all the time I spent compiling shots, editing them together, and rendering the video into formats that could be used by your average internet voyager, I could really be out making the most of the time abroad. I actually hated taking as many pictures and videos as I did back in Europe because I think they destroy the beauty of—hold on a second while a take a picture—What was I saying? Oh right, the beauty of the moment. But I desperately wanted to share everything with friends and family back home who I knew would never get the time or opportunity to leave the country. I think one of the biggest problems with the culture of the United States today is that no one is leaving it. I don't mean permanently, but the globalization of our planet is inescapable and it's much better having at least a vague idea of what's out there than growing to fear it as the unknown, a fear which others will often use to manipulate to their own ends. But I digress.

You, or we, should probably get used to that though. The whole digression thing. This unfortunately won't be the last time.

I'm writing this on a train. It's a pretty magical thing. Not only do all the workers seem like happy and pleasant people, you can look out the windows to see something interesting at any point, and I can only feel like this is a wonderful cosmic moment: to be writing about traveling while traveling, to be in motion while writing about being in motion.

See I did it again.

 In any case, I'm reviving this blog again because I found out (after a long and tortuous wait that I'll talk about next post) that I was selected for a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship grant to Colombia. I've been toying with the idea of starting a blog about linguistics and multi-multiculturalism for some time, and this seemed like a good excuse to do it. I plan to be a bit nomadic for the next couple years (with any luck I'll be able to write some interesting stories about being in France, Japan, and hopefully back in Spain over the next couple years), so you can expect all sorts of global tidbits and misadventures. And though I may not be doing too much in the way of videos anymore, I do plan to write and add a few pictures to make up for whatever boring moments come along in a post because everyone likes pictures. 

Beautiful